Animals need to be kept on a suitable surface that is continuously cleaned. Some kind of bedding material should be continuously strewn over the reclining areas. Some animals require such material to be strewn continuously to give them opportunity for normal behaviour as regards their instinct to grub or scratch, for instance.
The tending measures described above for feeding, strewing bedding, cleaning, etc. are traditionally extremely laborious. As animal production becomes increasingly rationalised, ways have been sought to fully or partially automate this tending.
Examples of devices whereby cleaning of the floor is automated are described in SU 1230 559, SU 1327 855, SU 1667 760, SU 1774 845 and SE 508 770. All these publications describe how a stall or animal box is provided with a movable floor in the form of an endless conveyor belt. This enables animal droppings to be continuously or intermittently removed and fodder and bedding can be fed forwards.
The devices known through the above publications entail expensive investment in order to connect external systems for supplying energy and suitable drive equipment. Added to this there is the cost of the energy supplied.
Examples are also known through RU 2038 764, SU 1456 069, SU 1797 798 and SU 1535 483 in which the animals' movement is utilised for tending measures.
Against this background the object of the present invention is to provide an animal keeping device and a method for animal keeping which, in a cost-effective manner, permit-far-reaching automation of animal tending.